Om Malik is thinking along the same lines. If anyone has a copy of the “test instructions”, please post them and drop a link: moreinfo [AT] buzzhit [DOT] com

Michael Yang of Become.com just posted over at SiliconBeat, saying:

“I would like to make two clarifications on this posting.One, it is true that weask candidates to take a programming test as a screening mechanism. One of thequestions requires the candidate to demonstrate an understanding of hypertextlink analysis algorithms such as PageRank. Two, we do not use any of thesubmitted code for our internal development purposes.”

Hopefully SiliconBeat will post confirmation of their original notes, or, a correction based on Yang’s comments…

UPDATE 2: Over in the comments section of the SiliconBeat piece, I asked Michael Yang:

“Michael Yang: When you say…

“we do not use any of the submitted code for our internal development purposes”

… does that include any of the ideas or inventions included in that code, or just the code itself? No difference in my mind if you’re just re-writing what they submitted.

Looking forward to your definitive statement.”

He replied:

“We have never used any code or ideas from the programming test. The programming test is focused on candidate’s programming proficiency rather than new ideas or inventions.”

Interestingly… SiliconBeat has posted an update (but not a retraction), saying (emphasis mine):

“Be sure to see Michael Yang’s remarks in the comments section about the controversial notion that some of the programmers’ ideas may have contributed to the Become.com code-base. Yang says now that his company “never used any code or ideas from the programming test.”

Alright, enough rumors and non-sense for the week. More analysis next week. 😉